Atlanta residents continue protests to shut down crime-ridden gas station
ATLANTA - Residents in a metro Atlanta community are continuing protests to try and get a local gas station shut down.
A group of homeowners in Adamsville held a protest Sunday to demand the shutdown of a Citgo gas station on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in southwest Atlanta.
Neighbors say the gas station has been the center of crime in the community for years, and they've simply had enough.
"We're here for one reason and one reason only and that's to shut this place down," local resident Ricky Brown said. "You've got crime, you've got prostitution, you've got drug sales on this property. You've got shootings and killings and murders. It's all types of crime going on in this property."
Officials say the convenience store has accounted for nearly 100 calls to the Atlanta Police Department in 2022 alone.
Councilwoman heads effort to shut down nuisance gas station
Dozens of residents joined community leaders and elected officials in an effort to shut down a southwest Atlanta gas station for good. Police have responded to the Citgo on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive more than 100 times already this year.
"We’ve had over 98 calls at this one location of violence of drugs of prostitution at this one location," Bishop Donald Bolton of Emmanuel Christian Fellowship Church told FOX 5 earlier in August.
"When you look at our stats and our data, this location is the one that utilizes the most of our resources," Zone 1 Commander Major Reginald Moore said.
City leaders said they’ve tried to work with tenants of the gas station to make it more safe, but it took a court order to get them to hire security.